Daily Archives: 18 June 2012

sans serif records with regret the passing away of Tehelka photographer Tarun Sehrawat after contracting malaria while working on a story in the Maoist-controlled areas of Chhattisgarh. He was 22 years old.

“Today, when one of our own has been irrevocably lost, I feel we — as reporters, photographers and editors — must turn our gaze inwards and ask ourselves why a 22-year-old photographer with access to the best health care in the country, was claimed by a disease that was demystified in 1897….

“India’s journalists tend to nurse a healthy disregard for institutionalised frameworks, arguing that it is impossible to take all risks into account. But a few basic measures could help eliminate entirely predictable and avoidable tragedies like the one that claimed Tarun.

“It is the responsibility of senior editors to assess the risks that junior, inexperienced journalists take in search of a story. It isn’t enough to tell a 22-year- old like Tarun to ‘Be Careful.’ An organisation should be in a position to direct its journalists to information on possible health hazards and the corresponding vaccinations, inoculations and precautions.

“Reporters working out of conflict zones need specific training; all of us in Chhattisgarh operate in the hope that “everything will be okay,” but sometimes that isn’t enough.”

“Jairam Ramesh’s judicious, sensible recommendations attracted hysterical condemnation from a New Delhi newspaper wedded to the doctrine of “growth at all costs”.

“The newspaper ran an editorial accusing India’s excellent and extremely well-qualified environment minister of “gadding about looking for more fashionable causes to sponsor”. It charged him with seeking to “destabilize an entire region’s development”.

“A few days later, the newspaper ran another editorial demanding quick clearance of all dam projects in Arunachal Pradesh. It claimed the “environment ministry has been careless and unwise in its approach to the various relatively small (sic) projects that have been planned for Arunachal in an attempt to increase the region’s prosperity and integration into the rest of the economy”. Warming to the theme, the editorial insinuated that by keeping Arunachal “backward”, Ramesh was merely playing into the hands of the Chinese.”